Free Republic

With his glib dismissal of pot legalization, the president looks less like the man, and more like The Man. When the generation of Americans under the age of 30 gets around to realizing that this handsome young president might not be nearly as cool as they’d hoped, it won’t be hard to affix a date on when the milk began to sour. It was March 26, 2009, when Barack Obama conducted a live town hall press conference featuring questions submitted online.

Crossing a Mexican drug cartel usually comes with a price — death. On the U.S.- Mexico border, that price is being paid daily with an endless stream of execution-style slayings in a war to control drug routes to the north. As Mexican officials crack down on these cartels, violence spreads. Lives are merely the cost of doing business, and since 2007 the international press has documented more than 7,400 drug war-related murders on the border. Police are gunned down in public squares. Failed drug smugglers are tortured to death and bound from head to toe in duct tape. Enemies are...

What do you talk about at lunch with Tom Tancredo? I thought I knew, but to my surprise (and relief), we spent much of the hour discussing the wisdom of legalizing drugs rather than rehashing our disagreements over illegal immigrants. "The status quo isn't working," Tancredo says, meaning the war on drugs has failed — spectacularly. And while that's hardly a novel insight, most people who reach it don't take the next step of questioning the drug war itself.

(This column is based on a report submitted to the National Association of Chiefs of Police by the US Department of Homeland Security.) During Monday's edition of Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck Show, the decidely conservative host asked his viewers to answer a question: outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden had stated that Iran was the Number One threat to the security of the United States; what country did Hayden rank as Number Two? The answer was Mexico. Meanwhile, retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey, the former U.S. drug czar, told the Los Angeles Times that the Mexican government "is fighting...

Drug prohibition militarizes our police, enriches our enemies, undermines our laws, and condemns our sick to suffering. At around 6pm on January 27 of last year, 80-year-old Isaac Singletary spotted a couple of drug dealers attempting to do business on his front lawn. It wasn’t the first time. Singletary, described by relatives as territorial and a bit crotchety, did what he’d done in the past. He grabbed his gun, and walked out on to his lawn to scare them off. Problem is, this time the men weren’t drug dealers. They were undercover Jacksonville, Florida police posing as drug dealers. They...

Shortly before his inauguration President Barack Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and discussed, among other things, the need for greater international cooperation in reducing drug trafficking and the associated violence. Although drug-related violence in Mexico is nothing new, the past couple of years have been especially turbulent. Not only has there been a substantial increase in drug-related homicide, the methods of murder have become nightmarishly macabre with drug traffickers decapitating their rivals and scattering the heads in public places. The drug cartels have also become increasingly brazen in their assaults on Mexico’s justice officials. Last year, several high-ranking...

US Army report states that America may be forced to intervene in Mexico to prevent the country from collapsing at the hands of organised crime and drug cartels. The report compiled by the army’s highest command has placed Mexico alongside Pakistan as possible failed states of the future. The report states: “Two large and important states bear consideration for rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.” Mexico has a population of 110 million and shares a two thousand mile border with America. It also is next to the smuggling routes linking the US with the drug-growing areas of South America...

Security: A new Pentagon forecast warns that Mexico is so embattled by drug lords it could rapidly collapse. The study says the only other state so threatened is Pakistan. This ought to be a wake-up call about U.S. priorities.As the Obama administration moves into office, new faces at the national security establishment with fresh perspective and a few long memories will be a good thing. That's because the U.S. may be forced to shift national security resources toward Mexico, based on the grim possibility that it might not make it out of its drug war. Vicious traffickers plaguing its border...

On Tuesday afternoon El Paso Mayor John Cook vetoed a resolution unanimously passed by city council that would have asked the U.S. government to begin a serious debate on legalizing narcotics. Earlier in the day city council passed a resolution, rationing that the best way to stop the drug wars in Juarez may be to legalize the drugs here in the United States. It was part of a larger resolution outlining several steps for the United States and Mexico to take in order to cut down on the number of murders between rival drug cartels. Last year more than 1,600...

MEXICO CITY - Battling with spiraling drug murders and an economic crisis, Mexico's Felipe Calderon will urge U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on Monday to support his drug war and stick to the NAFTA trade deal. Their meeting in Washington, days before Obama takes office, comes after years of complaints of neglect from Mexico and much of Latin America as President George W. Bush's foreign policy focused on the Middle East and the war on terror. With Mexico's drug violence exploding and fears that Obama could tamper with the North American Free Trade Agreement to protect U.S. workers, Calderon will try...

Esquire magazine recently reported that representatives from Barack Obama's administration team admit the president-elect will give strong consideration to decriminalizing marijuana by the end of his tenure in office. Those remarks follow comments issued last summer by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts), who introduced H.R. 5843 -- an act to remove federal penalties for the use of marijuana by "responsible adults." According to CNN, the liberal lawmaker "doesn't think it's the government's business to tell you how to spend your leisure time." Lending the Esquire article additional credence is an interview with Obama, recorded in January 2004, during which the then-U.S....

Border fence workers arrested for marijuana smuggling Mission police arrested three construction workers for the controversial border fence after they allegedly smuggled marijuana from Mexico and took a lunch break at a local Burger King (Video)

A 20-year-old Ghanaian has been sentenced to death in Singapore for trafficking 2.6 kilograms (5.73 pounds) of cannabis, the Straits Times reported Saturday. The High Court convicted and sentenced Chijioke Stephen Obioha on Tuesday after a 21-day trial held last year, it said. Under Singapore's tough anti-drug laws, the death penalty is mandatory for anyone caught trafficking more than 15 grams of heroin, 30 grams of cocaine or 500 grams of cannabis. The death penalty is carried out by hanging. Narcotics officers arrested Obioha in April 2007 following a surveillance operation. He had come to Singapore in 2005 to try...

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico – Mexico's warring cartels are negotiating a truce that, if it holds, could end one of the bloodiest eras since the 1910-20 Mexican Revolution, according to a U.S. official and experts familiar with the talks. A peace agreement would be the second in two years and, like the last one, its chances of surviving are slim, the U.S. official said. "In the end, greed prevails over reason," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Last year was one of the bloodiest ever, with more than 5,700 people killed nationwide, including 1,600 in Ciudad Juárez. "These guys...

Of course they did. It's Massachusetts. The voters passed a ballot initiative that made possession of less than an ounce marijuana a civil violation with no criminal consequences. And since Massachusetts is run by libtards, the law has shockingly caused a whole lot of problems. For starters, the police have given up - they won't even bother to write the ticket. More . . .

Massachusetts officially decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana yesterday, but many police departments across the state were essentially ignoring the voter-passed law, saying they would not even bother to ticket people they see smoking marijuana. "We're just basically not enforcing it right now," said Mark R. Laverdure, chief of police in Clinton...

Saturday 1/3/09 El Universal (Mexico City) 1/3/09 Four people were murdered Friday evening in separate incidents in Tijuana and Rosarito, Baja California. One of those killed by gunfire was a police officer. Bodies of two other victims were found burning in a car. Another died when armed men burst into a gambling hall, shooting. —– The seasonal increase of Mexican citizens returning home for the Christmas holidays appears normal, according to Mexico's Secretary of Foreign Relations (SRE). However, the department lacks specific data to indicate the number returning permanently due to the economic or enforcement climate in the US. —–...

Your “Only In Massachusetts” puzzler of the day: Boston cops kick in a door and find three people: An illegal immigrant living in subsidized housing; a 16-year-old girl smoking a joint; and a 20-year-old Marine drinking a Miller Lite to celebrate his safe return from a second tour of Iraq. Question: Of these three lawbreakers, who is the only one arrested? Answer that question, and you’ll know everything you need to know about America’s bluest state. The obvious answer - obvious to anyone who’s lived in Massachusetts more than a week - is the Miller Lite Marine. What’s a violation...

THE SITUATION IN MEXICO: A. The Mexican State is engaged in an increasingly violent, internal struggle against heavily armed narco-criminal cartels that have intimidated the public, corrupted much of law enforcement, and created an environment of impunity to the law. • Thousands are being murdered each year. Drug production, addiction, and smuggling are rampant. The struggle for power among drug cartels has resulted in chaos in the Mexican states and cities along the US-Mexico border. Drug-related assassinations and kidnappings are now common-place occurrences throughout the country. • Squad-sized units of the police and Army have been tortured, murdered, and their...

Yes it is time for another “Hippie Report” from Humboldt county Ca. Join us as we explore The Triad of Death. Humboldt State University, the Ciy of Arcata Ca., and The glorification of marijuana aimed at the youth of the community by the local newspaper - The North Coast Journal. 01/07/09